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Polishing

As you know this time when we went to Japan i visited very good Sword polisher well i think the best one in Japan.

And i learnd quite a lot from him, first of all i did not know what real polish was hehe. It seems like his swords was just without any scratches at all. Every derection i looked under every light i tried to turn and twist the blade just to spot single scratch even shalow one There was nothing

It was a really a eyer opener how he pulled that off, there was no secrets involved at all just patience and very hard work. He used 5 days just to polish with finger stones and 2 hole days with Nugui
He only worked on one sword a time so imagine 12 hrs every day just rubing with fingerstones for 5 days

When i got home i had a lot of inspiration i have 2 Kato Tamahagene (small swords) what they call them. I thought they was polished very well. But i was wrong hehe

I did not put at all all potential out of those small blades that is for sure. Then i started to polish one side 1 hr every day now for about 2 month

I think i am not finished yet i am still practicing but here is some pics of result.

That's great Maxim. I remember when I started doing mirror polish on my yanagi. I achieve great results but it took many many hours. It is very important to be honest with what you doing and to be 100% sure that non of previous grit scratches left. I was usually doing scratches in one direction and when i was sure that i finished i was doing scratches in opposite direction with same grit. Then i was going to next grit and so on. Doing it ths way you see scratches from previous grits. Can you show full pictures of that sword?

It is full picture there is just a Tang after that, i did not make handle for it yet.

Originally Posted by bathonuk

That's great Maxim. I remember when I started doing mirror polish on my yanagi. I achieve great results but it took many many hours. It is very important to be honest with what you doing and to be 100% sure that non of previous grit scratches left. I was usually doing scratches in one direction and when i was sure that i finished i was doing scratches in opposite direction with same grit. Then i was going to next grit and so on. Doing it ths way you see scratches from previous grits. Can you show full pictures of that sword?

It's really inspiring. I'll have to try on my shigefusa petty, but i don't know if i'll resist to don't use it for more than two days . I have a question, at that grade of finish will it be easier to restore it after the new patina, or you'll have to start over? How many times do you restore the finish to your knife? Amazing post, thanks for sharing.

For Shigefusa or kitchen knives it takes me much less time
I finish i with Uchigomori and thats it. To even out the finish you can use just some mud from your stone on some cloth or soft paper.

Tamahagene have much more structure to the steel thats why so hight finish revel more and more details. On our regular knife steels, steel is much cleaner so you will not need as fine polish to make it look good